High Wall

After a lonely drink (in a beautiful black-and-white barroom), religious book publisher Herbert Marshall (as Willard Whitcombe) goes to his office and inquires about pretty secretary Dorothy Patrick (as Helen). He is told her husband, World War II bomber pilot Robert Taylor (as Steven Kenet), has returned to the USA from Burma. Next, we see Mr. Taylor driving his apparently dead wife off the road, toppling their car. It turns out the beautiful blonde was strangled and Taylor is suffering from post-War stress and a brain injury. Taylor has a blood clot on the brain, causing some theatrical hands-on-his-headaches. Although he doesn't recall killing his wife, Taylor confesses and is committed to a psychiatric hospital. Attractive (and single) psychiatrist Audrey Totter (as Ann Lorrison) is assigned Taylor's case. She wonders if he's aiming to get off on "temporary insanity" – or, perhaps the (handsome) widower is innocent...

As of this writing, we are in an era where many filmmakers consider the "shaky camera" technique (called "hand held camera" by insiders) a high form of cinematic art. If you're dizzy after watching one of these wobbly movies, "High Wall" is a perfect antidote...

Cinematographer Paul Vogel's eloquence camera movements begin swirling through the opening bar scene, and are marvelous throughout. Guided skillfully by director Curtis Bernhardt, the camera helps tell us about the characters, and moves the story. Producer Robert Lord's team also know when to stop, as in the extra second we are given to read the words on the door of Mr. Marshall's office. Marshall gets one of the film's highlights – watch how he handles handyman Vince Barnett (Henry Cronner) with the hook of an umbrella. Marshall is worthy of a "Best Supporting Actor" award. It's also nice to see veteran H.B. Warner as a loony mental patient. The romance is routine and ending questionable, but "High Wall" is well worth scaling.

******* High Wall (12/17/47) Curtis Bernhardt ~ Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall, Vince Barnett

This is probably Robert Taylor's first real film noir. He is revered in some circles for work a decade later such as Nicholas Ray's "Party Girl." I think he is excellent in "High Wall." He plays a decorated war vet who is accused of murder. Not just accused of murder but also but into a psychiatric hospital. Yikes. No fun at all. Except that the hypnotherapist assigned to his case is a beautiful woman who kind of likes him.

Cast in the role of the psychiatrist is one of the great staples of film noir, Audrey Totter. She is as always good. Better than good. What's intriguing here is that she is cast not as a femme fatale but as a career woman who is in every sense on the right side of the angels and the law.

Herbert Marshall turns in a superbly creepy performance also. I won't say much about his role other than that this is not really a whodunit. We know the answer to that very early.

It's an unusual, brave movie. It has flaws but is nevertheless very good.

I am surprised that this film was never given its due credit for its strengths while its weaknesses have been highlighted.

It is obvious to a casual viewer that the performance of Robert Taylor is superior to most of his other films that exploited his physical attributes more than his innate talent. Taylor would have been a good material for intelligent directors but unfortunately few worked with him. Director Curtis Bernhardt, with European experience behind him, utilized the range of emotions that he could extract from Taylor and the usually "wooden" Taylor emerges as an intelligent, purposeful individual.

The obvious weaknesses is the science of psychotherapy, brain surgery and truth serums that are presented in the film, which we now know are antiquated and incorrect. Bernhardt has been criticized for his apathetic depiction of mental asylums in the film. All of this is correct but what would you do in the Forties if that is what you knew of the subject at that time.

Director Bernhardt to me is the person to be most admired in this movie, not actor Taylor. Take the sequence of the visit of the asylum staff to the house of the mother of the lead male character. You see the milk bottles and the newspapers outside the door. You have no response to the doorbell. Then you see a child peeking from behind the curtains and meekly opening the door. No word is spoken. The dead mothers feet are shown to us. Cut to another sequence. That is great cinema--good understanding of psychology, and deliberate underplaying of emotions by merely using visuals and editing the shots without resorting to emotional dialog.

The second most interesting facet of the film is the script. The rain used in the film (couldn't have been from the original play) adds so much to the atmosphere of the film. The sequences in the restaurants and bars, however short, are highlights of the strong script.

The editing, antiquated as it looks nearly 60 years after the film was made, is noteworthy for its crispness and relevance. The camera-work, exploiting shadows on frosted glasses and dark alleys, is equally remarkable.

Curtis Bernhardt could have been proud of this work despite its weakness for researching the subject inadequately. Handsome Taylor can be credited with a handful of good performances and strangely all of those performances had him playing anti-heroes. This is is one of those few.

The excellent German director Curtis Bernhardt made this powerful, brooding noir film complete with some expressionist lighting effects in the aftermath of the War. In it he expressed as well as anyone the trauma of the brain-injured returning war veterans, whose presence haunted America in the late 1940s. Robert Taylor gives a fine performance as a former colonel whose brain injury has returned, giving him headaches, partial amnesia, and violent mood swings. In this state, he returns home to find that his wife, a war bride, has become the mistress of a creepy religious publisher played to perfection with his most urbane and fastidious menace by Herbert Marshall. He falls into a rage and may or may not have strangled his straying wife. He wakes up, having collapsed, and confesses to the police. He is tormented by the death of his mother from the strain and the psychologically traumatised state of his son. He needs an emergency brain operation, and then is confined to an insane asylum for examination before being put on trial for murder. At the asylum, there is a touching portrayal of a pathetic inmate named Mr. Slocombe by H. B. Warner, the English actor who became one of Hollywood's best character actors and here surpasses himself. Into this mix comes the incomparable Audrey Totter, who added distinction to every film she was in. Here she is allowed to be a good girl rather than a bad girl. Anyone who has seen her work of two years later, 'Tension' (1949), knows she was capable of frying the audience with the passion of her acting. She plays a psychiatrist, with crisp efficient movements and a studied matter-of-factness which conceals her underlying passions. There is a wonderful uncredited cameo by Frank Jenks as a character named Pinky, who plays a character with a pivotal role in the inspired script. Will the truth be known? Can the hero be saved from someone's evil scheming? This is one of the more harrowing and nail-biting of such dramas. It is sophisticated and satisfying, and highly to be recommended. 'They don't make 'em like that any more.'

THE HIGH WALL gives Robert Taylor a chance to demonstrate that he was a very capable actor and much more than just a pretty face. Audrey Totter, as a psychiatrist who decides to help him prove he did not kill his wife, makes a strong impression opposite him. And Herbert Marshall is quietly effective as a mysterious man who knows the truth.

All of it is directed in brisk film noir fashion by Curtis Bernhardt with the accent on dark shadows and rainy streets to give it the proper noir atmosphere.

Rather than tell the plot, I'll just say that the story moves swiftly and keeps the viewer absorbed from start to finish. It's a well-paced thriller that makes use of psychiatric trends that may date the film today--but it's all done with such authority that whatever script contrivances are present don't really matter. It's intense and absorbing all the way in true film noir style. Taylor has seldom been more convincing as the distraught bomber pilot trying to find out whether he killed his wife or not.